Debt Markets Today - March 17, 2022. Russian Weekly Inflation, CBR Preview

CIS EUROBOND MARKETYesterday, the Finance Ministry repeated its previous comments that the payment order for the coupons on the Russia 23 and 43 Eurobonds had been sent off. Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said that "the ability to meet our obligations in the hard-currency equivalent does not depend on us; we have the money and carried out the payment; the ball is currently in the court of, first and foremost, the American authorities." It was later reported by Bloomberg, citing the explanation of a US Treasury Department official, that the current sanctions do not prohibit making payments to service Russia's sovereign debt in dollars - at least until the relevant license expires in May. As of this writing, we do not have information about whether the correspondent bank has in fact executed the payment. Meanwhile, the Russian sovereign Eurobond market remains inactive, although quotes have returned to the 38-40% range, up from the previous 26-29% area.GOVERNMENT DEBTOFZ trading on the Moscow Exchange is closed this week.STORIES> Russian weekly inflation eases to 2.1% last week> CBR Preview: CBR may take pause in rate hikes